Isle of the Dead by Alex Connor Read Free Book Online

dead.’
    â€˜But Vespucci didn’t do it! Gaspare, someone killed Seraphina, but not someone – or something – supernatural. It’s not possible … You know that, don’t you?’ He paused, wary. ‘Where’s the painting now?’
    â€˜I don’t know.’
    â€˜Yes, you do,’ Nino replied, looking around him. ‘You could have hidden that bloody thing in this place and no one would find it for years.’
    â€˜I dumped it,’ Gaspare said, the lie smooth.
    â€˜Where?’
    â€˜In a skip. On Kensington High Street,’ Gaspare replied. ‘I dumped it the night Seraphina came here. When I looked this morning, the skip had gone.’
    â€˜I don’t believe you. You’d never have got rid of that Titian.’ He poured two whiskies, passing one to Gaspare and then sitting down. ‘Go on, drink it, then we’ll talk about what we’re going to do.’
    Obediently, the dealer sipped his drink. His panic had subsided; in the face of Nino’s logic the idea of Vespucci’s resurrection seemed ridiculous. But then again, Seraphina
had
found the picture. And now she was dead.
    â€˜
Why
would someone kill her?’ he asked Nino.
    â€˜A robbery gone bad?’
    â€˜Maybe … But why was she killed like
that
?’ Gaspare countered, finally glancing back at him. ‘And why now, when the portrait’s re-emerged?’
    â€˜Coincidence?’
    â€˜That she might have been followed from London and murdered in Venice after she had found a portrait of a man who had killed in exactly the same way?’ Gaspare clicked his tongue. ‘Coincidence, no. No, I don’t believe it.’
    â€˜What else could it be?’
    â€˜I don’t know,’ Gaspare admitted. ‘Maybe Seraphina told someone she’d found the portrait.’
    â€˜You told her not to.’
    â€˜She was a woman and women talk – they can’t help it sometimes,’ Gaspare said, taking another drink of the whisky.‘Seraphina had gone home to Venice. It would have been hard to put the story out of her mind in the city where Vespucci had once lived. Could
you
keep it a secret? I doubt she could. Seraphina’s parents are cultured; it would have been fascinating for them. Perhaps she couldn’t resist confiding …’ He paused, shaking his head, remembering the phone conversation. ‘No, her mother knew nothing. She was asking me what
I
knew.’
    â€˜What about Seraphina’s husband?’ Nino queried. ‘Wives talk to their husbands. She could have easily told him. Asked him to keep it a secret, but then he slipped up.’
    â€˜Maybe.’
    â€˜What does he do for a living?’
    â€˜I don’t know.’
    â€˜She said he was American. Perhaps he talked about the portrait to a dealer back home and the dealer confronted Seraphina about it?’
    â€˜No, not a dealer,’ Gaspare replied thoughtfully. ‘A runner more like. There are hundreds of small-time crooks in the art world, all hustling each other and scrabbling after the latest rumour or find. They live off the scraps dealers throw them for tips or information. Italy, in particular, has a massive trade in art crime. Paintings change hands or are stolen to order and then exported all over the world. Only recently a member of the mob confessed that the famous Caravaggio in Palermo was taken by the Mafia in the seventies.’
    â€˜So someone
could
have challenged Seraphina – but she wouldn’t tell them anything. Wouldn’t admit to finding the portrait. Or tell them where it was.’
    â€˜And they killed her?’
    â€˜Maybe that part was an accident.’
    â€˜So why do that to her body?’
    Nino finished his drink and shrugged. ‘You’re the art dealer, I’m just guessing. But if this was a film, what better way to bring the painting to the forefront of